In our last issue we presented an article on Don Sweeney, President of DLS Electronic Systems, who was sitting for the EMC certification examination. We published that article partly because we wanted to show that "grandfathered" practitioners could pass the examination, and also because the expression on Don's face seemed to reflect a general look of confident anxiety.
Since that article was published, I am finding that there is, in fact, a lot of anxiety over our examinations. As shown in the following Table 2:NARTE Examinations our certification examinations for Telecommunications Engineer Class III, EMC and ESD engineer and technician are open book and eight hours long. All other examinations are four hours long, but the four-hour exams are closed book. In this article I discuss examination structure, and recommend some strategies to attack and pass any NARTE examination. Our desire at NARTE is for all competent candidates to pass.

Psychometric Review
Psychometrics is the branch of psychology that deals with the design, administration, and interpretation of quantitative tests for the measurement of psychological variables; such as intelligence, aptitude, and personality traits.
All properly prepared examinations must be subjected to a psychometric review prior to incorporation into an examination database. Another part of the psychometric review attempts to remove "trick" questions. Time pressure and anxiety tend to mask trick questions, making them inappropriate for general testing. iNARTE avoids trick questions.
An idiom is a speech form, or an expression of a given language, that is peculiar to itself grammatically, or cannot be understood from the meanings of its individual elements.
Another way to look at idioms is that they are specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; i.e., jargon, local idiom, etc. For an examination to be given nationally or internationally, as NARTE examinations are, part of the psychometric review must be to groom out any jargon or local idioms. This is done as part of the psychometric review of all questions.

Open vs Closed-Book
Closed book examinations are usually reserved for less complicated subject material or less complicated questions about any given material. An answer requiring a simple calculation by a common formula is an example of a less complicated question.
The intent of a closed book examination is to measure how much knowledge is retained. The methodology is that stimulation by the question (or the combination of question and answer choices) will trigger an intuitive response.
If the candidate is well founded in the material and the questions are structured correctly, intuition can lead to a correct response to the question. That is why most proctors advise candidates to stick with their first answer. The first response is your internal search engine' s clue to the highest probability of correct response.
Open book examinations are usually used where the material is more complicated, or judgment may be required in formulating an answer. Open book examinations are intended to reflect the conditions that a practitioner may encounter in actual practice. Open book questions can be presented in either essay or multiplechoice formats. iNARTE uses multiplechoice exclusively, for consistency and ease of grading the final product.
One hazard in open book examinations is that the process will permit the examinee to bring as many hard copy references as desired. This is both a courtesy and a trap. It is a courtesy in that the examiner wants the candidate to work the examination just as he or she would approach a problem in professional practice. It is a trap in that the examinee may bring more reference material than they can practically use in the time allowed. This is a purposeful strategy on the part of those who prepared the examination. They know that in a time-constrained test, one can allocate only a limited amount of time for research. A candidate can (and many have) literally blown the examination by spending too much time researching pesky problems.
It is important to bring copies of professional standards, one or two general handbooks common to the field--and that is all. Do not bring textbooks! Textbooks are very hard to use for research in a timelimited test. They are usually narrowly focused, and tend to latch on to subtleties and nuances of a particular subject, spending pages and chapters on related material, making quick research very difficult. If you must bring textbooks, limit yourself to one or two and flag each with sticky tabs at those sections to which you want to refer.

Examination Conditions
The examination will be administered by a proctor who probably does not have any intimate knowledge of the test itself, or possibly even the field of technology· As a consequence, the proctor can not be counted on to provide answers to knotty technical issues. The proctor has been given instructions on how to administer the test and that is it. You are on your own once the clock starts.

Strategies For EMC and ESD Exams
A first suggestion is to look over the questions before attacking any given one. iNARTE EMC and ESD tests consist of two test sessions, morning and afternoon, each having 48 questions. Considering a fourhour test period, that would leave about five minutes per question· iNARTE only grades :he first 40 answers marked. This means that eight questions can be thrown away right off the top. Look over the examination and flag the "throw-aways" first.
iNARTE only requires a 70% score to pass. Since 70% of 40 is 28, so only 28 questions have to be answered correctly on each section. That means instead of just eight, 20 questions could actually be thrown away.
It is wise to include a few more than 28 as insurance against the possibility that one or more answers may not be correct, but the scale is now clear. If 28 (correct) answers are to be provided, the candidate can now spend eight-and-a-half minutes on each question.
Some answers will come quickly, others more slowly. It is a good idea to jot down some time milestones on a sheet of scratch paper, or on the examination booklet, in terms of the clock hour as a progress check.
For example, with a time budget of 6 minutes per question, one should answer 10 questions each hour. The time budget would be:

0900:10 answers
1000:20 answers
1100:30 answers

0900: 8 answers
1000:17 answers
1100:23 answers
1144:28 answers

Strategies For Telecommunications Exams
Telecommunications examinations are presented in a straight-forward multiple choice format of 100 questions. Examinees must pass the exam with a score of at least 75% correct answers. They are allowed 8 hours total exam time, and the examination is open book. The suggestions and strategies for taking telecommunications exams are the same as presented for EMC/ESD exams, above.
Telecommunications technician examinees are allowed 4 hours total exam time, with no reference material allowed in the exam room, Examinees are permitted to bring and use a calculator and clean scratch paper.

One other point needs to be made. Even though the questions have been carefully screened, sometimes a bad question makes it through. If a bad question is encountered, it is both helpful and to the candidates advantage to flag the question, explain what may be wrong, and if the solution is available, to provide it.
For example, in one examination, the candidate encountered a question which had also been used as an example in one of his references. Of the four answers provided by NARTE, none matched the answer in his text. The candidate annotated the examination booklet with the correct answer, cited the reference text and turned it in when he completed the examination. iNARTE staff gave him full credit for that question (and corrected the question in the test pool).
In other instances, people have just flagged questions as being wrong. iNARTE staff, after examination of the deficient question, have sometimes thrown it out. People who included the question in their examination got full credit for it, even though it was subsequently thrown out.
Table 1 below summarizes the "Tips" for attacking NARTE EMC and ESD certification examinations.

Table 1: Summary of Test-Taking Tips

Summary of Test Taking Tips

Stick with your first answer. Your first response is your internal search engine's highest probability of correct response. For open book exams, limit reference material. Bring copies of standards, and one or two general handbooks common to the field. Use of text books as a reference is discouraged. If you must bring text books, limit yourself to one or two and flag those sections to which you want to refer with sticky tabs. For EMC and ESD exams, look over the questions before attacking any given one. iNARTE only grades the first forty answers received. Only 28 questions have to be answered correctly. Jot down some time milestones on a sheet of scratch paper or on the examination booklet, in terms of the clock hour as a check. For example, with a time budget of 6 minutes per question, one should answer 10 questions each hour. If you would like to dispute the validity of a question, mark your comments and explanations in the exam booklet. Your contention will be reveiwed by NARTE. iNARTE does not take additional points off for wrong answers. Thus, it is to the examinee's advantage to mark something for an answer, even if it is a guess.

After Completion
At the completion of the examination, all materials are to be returned to the proctor. Do not try to abscond with part of the booklet or fudge for more time. It is just not worth it. The proctor will forward the examination to NARTE headquarters. The examination will be scored and candidates notified of their results.
A candidate must wait 90 days to apply for a retest and must give NARTE 45 days to coordinate a retest. Those four-and-ahalf months should be used to sharpen skills to "kill" the examination at the next session.
Examination content is not the issue. It is assumed that each candidate is confident in their knowledge of their chosen subject area before any examination begins. The NARTE examination should be looked at as an opportunity for us to demonstrate subject mastery.
Almost all of us could sit successfully for the NARTE examination in our field of expertise. The approach of this article is to reinforce your confidence by further simplifying the test-taking process. Taking a few minutes at the beginning to organize references, plot time milestones and assess the examination, will pay huge dividends at the end. Even so, sitting for a NARTE examination is bound to be the fastest four (or eight) hours of anyone's life!

Table 2: iNARTE Examinations

Examination Type	Time Limit	Number of Questions	Open Book	Passing %
FCC Commerical License ** (Up to 3 Elements in 4 hrs)	4 hours	**	No	75 %
Telecom Technician Class I	4 hours	100	No	75 %
Telecom Technician Class II	4 hours	100	No	75 %
Telecom Technician Class III	4 hours	100	No	75 %
Telecom Technician Class IV	4 hours	100	No	75 %
Telecom Engineer Class I	8 hours	96	Yes	75 %
Telecom Engineer Class III	8 hours	70	Yes	75 %
Telecom Endorsements	4 hours	25	No	75 %
EMC Engineer	8 hours	80 of 96	Yes	70 %
EMC Technician	8 hours	80 of 96	Yes	70 %
ESD Engineer	8 hours	80 of 96	Yes	70 %
ESD Technician	8 hours	80 of 96	Yes	70 %
Unlicensed Wireless Systems Installer Engineer	4 hours	40 of 48	Yes	70 %
Unlicensed Wireless Systems Installer Technician	4 hours	40 of 48	Yes	70 %

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